Farm Stay Staycations: What They Are Really Like

Farm stays are one of the oldest forms of British holiday accommodation and one of the most variable. The category covers everything from a spare cottage on a working hill farm, where you will see the business of farming happening around you, to a purpose-built holiday operation with animals kept largely for visitors. Both can be excellent. They are not the same holiday, and the listings do not always make it obvious which one you are booking.

The two kinds of farm stay

The working farm with accommodation

Here the farm comes first. There will be machinery, mud, early starts and real work going on. Children who are interested will get far more out of it than any attraction can offer, and adults tend to find it more interesting than expected. Common throughout the Yorkshire Dales, Shropshire, Devon and mid Pembrokeshire.

The farm built around visitors

Animals to feed, eggs to collect, often a play barn. Better for very young children and for anyone who wants the idea of a farm without the six o'clock tractor. These cluster where family tourism already is, so north Devon, Somerset and the New Forest are good places to start.

What to ask before you book

What can the children actually do

This is the question that decides the holiday. On some farms children help with feeding at set times. On others, quite reasonably, they may not go beyond the garden gate. Neither is wrong, but the second will disappoint anybody who booked expecting the first.

How far is the accommodation from the yard

Close enough to see things happening is good. Directly adjoining is noisier and considerably muddier than the photographs suggest.

What the ground is like

Farms are not flat and rarely surfaced. If you are bringing a pushchair or anyone who is unsteady, ask specifically about the route from the parking to the door, and about gates and cattle grids.

The seasons make a real difference

Spring is lambing on the upland farms and is the most interesting time to visit, though it is also the busiest period for the farmer. Late summer is harvest, which is dramatic but leaves even less time for visitors. Winter is quiet, muddy and cheap, and on an upland farm can be genuinely bleak in a way some people love.

Two things worth knowing

Farms are workplaces

Machinery moves, gates matter, and dogs are usually working rather than pets. None of this is a problem, but it does mean the rules are real rules rather than suggestions, and children need to understand that before they arrive rather than after.

It gets dark and it gets quiet

Farms sit away from streetlights, which is wonderful for stars and disconcerting for anyone who has never experienced genuine darkness. Bring a torch. The quiet is the other half of the same thing, broken only by livestock, which is louder at night than most people expect.

Practical points

Farm accommodation is often owner-managed with fewer units and less flexible changeover days than a holiday park. Book directly and early where you can. Bring boots for everybody, including anybody who insists they will not need them, and expect at least one item of clothing to be written off.

See also our family staycations guide, wildlife breaks, and the Yorkshire Dales and Shropshire pages.